[aazaa]

> One of the reasons why eating in cemeteries become a “fad,” as some reporters called it, was that epidemics were raging across the country: Yellow fever and cholera flourished, children passed away before turning 10, women died during childbirth. Death was a constant visitor for many families, and in cemeteries, people could “talk” and break bread with family and friends, both living and deceased.

It's fascinating that the article also notes that the older generation at the time (late 19th century) viewed the fad with disgust:

> But plenty of Americans believed that picnics in local cemeteries were a “gruesome festivity.” This critique, notably from older generations, didn’t stop young adults from meeting up in graveyards. Instead it led to debate over proper conduct.

This was a phenomenon driven by the times. Lots of deaths mean you spend a lot more time at the cemetery. Cemeteries started to lose their association with loss/decay and gained more of an association with remembrance.

There's quite a lot on this topic, like this article, which notes that another reason for the pull of cemeteries at that time was the Civil War:

> ... Beginning in the late 1800s, cemeteries were prime picnic spots. Remember, in the aftermath of the bloody Civil War and in an age of cholera and yellow fever, cities created large new cemeteries to accommodate the dead. Family farms or sacred churchyards were no longer the only spots for burial grounds. These new-age cemeteries looked and functioned more like public parks than stark, spooky graveyards. They featured professional landscaping, winding paths, ponds, and pavilions.

https://connectingdirectors.com/55122-cemetery-picnics

[thaumasiotes]

There is a Chinese holiday, Qingming ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival ), devoted to caring for ancestors' graves. Obviously, there is heavy cemetery traffic on that day.

The major ritual involves burning (fake) money for the deceased to use in the afterlife, but food offerings are also made. The food is not burned - it is recovered and eaten by normal living people, though I don't know whether people eat in the cemetery.

The general idea of bringing food to the cemetery so that a dead relative can be part of the meal too, though, seems fairly natural to me. When you want to spend time with a dead person, where would you go to do that?

[secondaryacct]

They do eat there, here in Hong Kong it's even funny: people dont go all at the same time and end up putting their trash on other people's grave, making the entire cemetary a mess on the day.

Weirdly, they also are absolutely insanely paranoid about have a view of the cemetary from their appartment: I know me and my wife lived in one such (cheap as a consequence) flat, and her parents were quite mad. When we left, the owner was trying to sell it, but all couples would just stop at the view, pause, and nope as fast as possible :D

I'm trying to get a suicidee or murderee flat for cheap but my wife is absolutely against still.

[HKH2]

I remember someone telling me that they put a mirror facing the window to reflect the [negative energy] away.

[bashmelek]

I find the idea very natural too, and there is precedent for this in Western tradition as well. In the times of ancient Rome, people would eat a meal with at their gravesite of a dead relative. This meal was called "refrigerium". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerium

Interestingly enough, some necropoleis in those times were literal cities of the dead, made of structures with rooms where the dead were interred, and people could do the regrigerium in those "houses". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necropolis mentions this style of necropolis for the Etruscans, but it is my understanding Rome had these too at some point.